‘Outlander’ Showrunner Ronald D. Moore Opens Up About The Challenges Of Filming Season 3 ‘Voyager’

Jamie and Claire are headed to the open seas when Outlander returns for another season next year. While the first two seasons featured Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) rooted in Scotland, Season 3 will see them sail through the North Atlantic and venture to exotic places like the Caribbean.

“Our home base will always be Scotland,” Moore explained. “We’re looking at various options for where to shoot the ships and where to find tropical beaches and jungles to play the Caribbean section of the story. Hopefully, we’ll find a place that has both things at once so we’ll only have to make one big trip for the company.”

This echoes the comments Moore made online this past week about looking for different locations to film the ships. Production for Season 3 is officially underway, though filming for the ship portions of the season has not started yet.

Apparently, shooting onboard ships is a difficult process, though Moore is confident his team can get the job done.

“They’re challenging shoots,” he shared. “Anything having to do with the water is very challenging for any production. But my production company is called Tall Ship. This to me is going be a lot of fun.”

Following the Season 2 finale, Entertainment Weekly sat down with Moore and asked him about production for Voyager.

Moore admitted that the production process, especially the writing and developing story arcs, started much earlier than the first two seasons.

To make things easier, Starz renewed Outlander for two more seasons instead of the tradition one season renewal most shows receive.

“Season 3 is a traveling show. It starts in Scotland, but then it’s a sea voyage. There are pirates. It’s in Jamaica. It’s in the New World,” Moore shared. “And book 4 is in the New World and suddenly in North Carolina. So having the ability to make long-range plans about where we are shooting certain elements and where we want to dedicate resources is enormously helpful in planning the show.”

With Season 3 featuring sets that cannot be found in Scotland, what are some of the filming locations this year?

“Our home base will always be Scotland. We’re looking at various options for where to shoot the ships and where to find tropical beaches and jungles to play the Caribbean section of the story,” Moore revealed. “Hopefully, we’ll find a place that has both things at once so we’ll only have to make one big trip for the company.”

While Scotland will be featured heavily in Season 3, Bustle is reporting that Gabaldon wasn’t actually familiar with Jamie’s native country when she first started writing the books.

Gabaldon’s sole inspiration for setting Outlander in Scotland was the image of men in kilts.

“I didn’t know anything about Scotland, but the image of the men in kilts stayed in my head,” Gabaldon said.

Fortunately, Gabaldon’s vision turned into success, and her series has sold over 27 million copies throughout the world.

Although kilts inspired Jamie’s character, Gabaldon turned to her own personality for Claire.

“As I started writing the character of Claire Randall, she just wouldn’t speak like an 18th Century English woman at all. She was speaking in a modern tone of voice,” she stated.

While fans are excited for the release of Season 3, Gabaldon is currently working on the ninth book in the series, titled Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone.

Starz has yet to announce an official premiere date for the new season, though fans can expect Outlander to return early next year.